


heard you whisper over the hum of an electric chair

by daaeleira



Series: So Close [ Mirror, Mirror AU ] [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Blow Jobs, Cunnilingus, Exhibitionism, F/M, Face-Fucking, Face-Sitting, Feelings, Female Ejaculation, Hurt/Comfort, Hydra (Marvel), Light BDSM, Light Bondage, Light Dom/sub, Loss of Virginity, Named for So Close by Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness, Panic Attacks, Past Abuse, Past Religious Abuse, Peripheral Rumlow/OC, Porn With Plot, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sex Pollen, Sharing a Bed, Squirting, Steve Eats Pussy to Survive, Super Stamina, Triggers, Virgin!Steve Rogers, forced to fuck, in other words leila ties him up and comes on his face and he lives for it, in the way that all sex pollen/ftf is dubcon, mild dubcon, past noncon, past sexual trauma, sub!Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:26:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23200909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daaeleira/pseuds/daaeleira
Summary: The mission is simple, on paper. Recon only, no extraction. An abandoned WWII bunker was discovered on the border between Albania and Greece. Fury wanted to know if it was Nazi or Hydra.It should have been easy. They were dropped near the bunker; they had three days to get in, get out, and get to the nearest SHIELD base in Athens.But she’s Leila Whittaker, and nothing has ever been that easy.(AKA the one where sex pollen forces Steve and Leila to work out their issues.)
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Original Female Character(s)
Series: So Close [ Mirror, Mirror AU ] [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1668019
Comments: 4
Kudos: 33





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Wolveria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolveria/gifts).



> So this is an AU of my fic _Mirror, Mirror,_ written for [trashmenofmarvel's 2K trash party!](https://trashmenofmarvel.tumblr.com/post/190805380717/its-finally-happened-i-hit-2000-followers-now) She said trash men could be OCs and non-men for the purposes of the challenge so ofc I had to write about my trash baby, Leila, and I chose the fuck-or-die prompt in a fit of bravery and then forced myself to follow through. Took me awhile to build up steam (I haven't written smut in a long time), but in the end I really enjoyed writing this. It was supposed to just me angry smut but then a plotline happened and now here we are. 
> 
> This fic contains spoilers for the main MM fic, particularly about Leila's past and about Steve and Leila's post-Avengers relationship. (Check the end notes for some context on the latter.) Please let me know if anything is confusing. It takes place between Avengers (2012) and CA:TWS. 
> 
> Finally, shout-out to wolveria for organizing this event and to Madstarling14 for encouraging and reading through various drafts of this to help me iron it out. I love y'all. <3

_Wednesday, 12:11 PM_

It’s a two hour hike to the closest town, a miniscule village five miles away, and they spend it largely in silence. Which isn’t unusual for them, but it’s different this time. The weight of it, the way the silence hangs between them, just feels off-balance. Their prior silences were easy to walk; this one is a tightrope. 

She slips, the leaves shifting against the mud under her boots, and slides back for a brief moment. Steve catches her arm, letting her catch her balance, and she leans her free palm against a tree to maintain it. 

They make eye contact for a brief moment, before he lets go of her as though her skin has burned him and turns away. She doesn’t dwell on it for the moment, but she could swear he was blushing. 

  
  
  
  


* * *

_Wednesday, 8:00 AM_

Leila’s not sure why they sent her with Rogers and no one else. It’s been six months since Tokyo; surely Fury knows about their mutual animosity by now. Maybe he was trying to get them to work things out via a low-stakes mission-slash-roadtrip. Or maybe it came from further down the command chain; leaving her alone with Steve to pass agg at her for whatever was between her and and the super-soldier before Tokyo is very on-brand for Rumlow. 

The mission is simple, on paper. Recon only, no extraction. An abandoned WWII bunker was discovered on the border between Albania and Greece. Fury wanted to know if it was Nazi or Hydra. 

It should have been easy. They were dropped near the bunker; they had three days to get in, get out, and get to the nearest SHIELD base in Athens. 

But she’s Leila Whittaker, and nothing has ever been that easy. 

  
  
  
  


* * *

_Wednesday, 2:13 PM_

Murre-Manesh is not a bad place, objectively. It’s kind of charming, in a Disney-ish sort of way. They kind of place you see on postcards. It’s just that Leila hates rurality, as a rule. Not the people, just the places. Little towns out on their own, in the middle of nowhere, distanced from the rest of society--it makes it really easy to get away with really weird shit. 

Sure, it’s easier to get away with normal crime in big cities. Murder, robbery, that’s fine. That’s whatever. It’s just the virgin sacrifices and shit that flies under the radar in villages. The more people there are in a city, the more crime there is, but there’s also more witnesses. Leila wasn’t even thrilled about having to relocate from New York to DC after Loki’s invasion, but now it’s like, god, the sooner she’s standing inside the triskelion, the better. 

The plan is to hike from the Hydra base to Murre-Manesh, take a train from there to Tirana, and then take another, bigger train from Tirana to Athens. 

The bad news is that the train to Tirana only comes and goes on Thursday, and the day everything happens is a Wednesday. 

The worse news doesn’t come until later, when it’s time to find a place to settle for the night. 

  
  
  


* * *

_Wednesday, 8:14 AM_

  
  


The first thing that strikes her as odd about the bunker is the chamber in the middle. There’s a trick to getting underground, and once they get through the doors--they’re sealed, but the lock is very obsolete, and it’s not hard for Leila to hack--and what they find is not at all what she expected. 

The lights flutter on by themselves, and she hears some kind of generator go on. The room is huge, expansive, but instead of any scientific or medical equipment, there’s just...furniture. A bunch of beds, a few sofas. They’re not clustered together the way they would be if they were just being stored there (although if they were, that would probably, somehow, be even weirder.) They were clearly used for something, she just doesn’t know what yet. 

There’s a door on the left, with a wide window next to it; it’s hard to see past the dust, but she thinks it might be some kind of office. Leila nudges Steve with her elbow and tilts her head in the door’s direction. 

The weird thing about their...estrangement, or whatever this tension is, is that it’s gotten them very good at communicating without words, maybe even better than they did when they operated on mutual comradery.

Leila takes the lead. The door is locked--old-fashioned, this time--and she pulls a lockpick out of her hair. (She has a tool that SHIELD gave her to do it, but she’s found it quicker to do it the old-fashioned way--and besides, it’s almost comforting, in a weird way. Familiar.)

She hears the lock click open and stands up. Something feels off about the whole situation, something hanging in the air. It’s like something out of a horror movie. Her heartbeat has picked up just a tic, and everything is charged with this nervous energy, like all her nerve endings are on the verge of catching fire. 

She steps inside and Steve follows. No automatic lights this time; there’s a string hanging by the door, and she tugs on it, and some ancient light flickers on. It’s one of those old fluorescent ones that sort of hum and never stop flickering, and it only adds to the tension in the room. 

The room is sparse; there’s a desk in front of the window, and a shelf on the wall with a line of books next to it--no, she sees as she picks up one of the books and lets it fall open in her hand. Not books. Journals. Records. 

She’s acutely aware of everything around her--the feel of her suit, the wayward curls that came loose when she pulled out the lockpick, the small area of the room, and Steve’s presence behind her, just a little bit closer than he usually gets. She doesn’t address it; she’s too busy processing the words in front of her. 

_Oh my god._

  
  
  
  


* * *

_Wednesday, 2:15 PM_

“We need to talk about this,” Steve says after the waitress walks away with their order, switching back to English. His Albanian is better than she thought it’d be, she notes absently. He pulls his jacket tighter around them; they both brought one, to cover up the suits. Being identified by their outfits in a tiny Albanian village doesn’t exactly carry the subtlety expected of intelligence agents. 

“Ooh, the what-are-we talk,” she says with a smirk. “Did they not have casual sex in the 40s?”

He looks distinctly unamused, but she can see that blush creeping into his cheeks again. Her smirk widens a little. 

“I _meant_ ,” he says, “about the fact that Hydra was still in operation after the war.”

“Oh, right. That.”

Steve studies her and then looks down. “Right,” he mutters, and she tilts her head curiously. 

“You think I don’t care.”

“Do you?”

“I mean, I have a scientific curiosity,” she says. “And it is my job. So.”

“So why’d you try to burn down all the evidence?” he asks, and her blood runs cold.

She looks down. 

“That’s not what I was trying to do,” she says tersely. 

  
  
  


* * *

_Wednesday, 8:15 AM_

The gist of the journal is this: in 1956, Hydra (which was, apparently, very much still in operation at the time) had been working on a new copy-cat version of the super-soldier serum, and apparently landed on something they liked. 

In 1960, they instituted a reproductive program; the idea was to see if the serum could be passed on genetically. 

The way they put the program into practice was to put all their super-soldiers in a room, pump some kind of inhalable aphrodisiac into the air, and let them do with that what they would--which was, according to the meticulous notes written down by a Doctor Hans Fischer, mostly each other. 

Reading this out loud to Rogers might have actually been kind of fun--between his apparent inexperience and Irish skin, he blushes exceptionally easily--except for the fact that she’s pretty sure the room he talks about is the one they just came from, and she’s pretty sure the generator she heard come on when they entered was for the sex spray, because _this is not normal._

Granted, she never fully stopped being attracted to Rogers, loathe as she is to admit it. He’s objectively a good-looking guy, and more importantly, very corruptible. Steve Rogers in the Captain America suit makes her see what teenage boys see in Catholic school uniforms. 

She can usually keep it under control, due to the fact that she hates him and he hates her back, and also the fact that she’s a functioning adult who can keep her libido in check, but neither of those things seem to matter in the face of whatever weird-ass Hydra viagra she’s breathing in, because now all those fantasies she has tucked away in the attic of her mind are all she can think about.

She sits perched on Fischer’s desk, leaning back on her palms, her eyes following Rogers as he paces the room. 

“There has to be something we can use to seal the room,” Steve says. 

“You said that two minutes ago,” Leila snaps. (There’s not, although she has to hope there was when it was in operation.)

“Then we wait for extraction.”

“We’ll run out of air before SHIELD knows we’re missing.” (They will; she did the math.)

“Then we make a run for it.”

“I told you, the doors locked after us.” (They did; she heard it when they entered and the journal confirmed it.” 

“Then I’ll break them.”

_Break me instead_ , she thinks idly. “Have fun with that, super-soldier.”

“How are you so cavalier about this?”

The truth is, she’s wondering that too. No offense to Steve Rogers (this time), but Leila’s had her lifetime’s fill of weird sex cults. By all logic, this situation should be her worst nightmare.

Instead she’s started doing that thing her mind does sometimes, where the rational part of her that should worry just steps away for awhile. It’s something in between her normal self and the part of her that almost killed Alex Manor that night in Tokyo. She doesn’t black out like she did that night, or the night after, when she destroyed her apartment. There’s no blank period when the memories leave and then come back. No. She remembers everything about this in-between state; she’s aware of what she’s doing, what she’s saying. It’s not all of her that leaves her mind, just the part of her that’s inconvenient. 

(Leila’s pretty sure this has to be a symptom of some kind of psychosis, but it conveniences her more than it inconveniences her, so she lets it be. If her brain was normal, she’d be claustrophobic, pacing like Steve is, trying to find a way out. Instead, between the unknown symptom and the sex febreeze being pumped into the air, all she can think about is tearing Steve Roger’s star-spangled suit off of him and fucking him so hard he limps for a week.)

Even if there wasn’t an accusatory edge to his voice, she wouldn’t answer his question. But there is, and she sits up, her legs dangling over the edge of the desk she’s perched on, suddenly interested in his train of thought. 

“You sound like you already know,” she says, and he glares before turning back to pacing. 

She laughs a little. “Believe me, Rogers, if I wanted to seduce you, you wouldn’t have to ask.”

He scoffs and doesn’t look at her. It’s a weird sort of almost-drunk giddiness that’s possessed her; everything he does that she’d usually find insufferable is just unbearably amusing to her now. That fact in and of itself should also be insufferable, but the part of her that would feel that way is also in hiding. 

“You think I can’t?” she asks. 

“I think if I survived World War II, I can survive you.”

“Ouch,” she giggles. “Okay. We can pretend you were never into me, if you want. We can pretend we don’t both know how you almost kissed me in Tokyo. We can pretend I didn’t see you look at me in that red dress in the Bianchi case. But none of that changes the fact that there’s only one way out of here.” She picks up the journal and tosses it to him. She’s vaguely impressed by the fact that he catches it without looking. “Page 112,” she tells him. 

That’s the page that talks about how they figured out how to rig the doors to only open when sensors in the room can tell everyone in it has gotten off. 

“And we can’t handle it by ourselves?”

“We’re all grown-ups, Steve, I think we can say the ‘masturbate’ word,” she says, mostly just to fluster him even more. “Page 67.” 

That’s the page that talks about how they figured out how to alter the inhalant to prevent orgasms that don’t involve exchange of bodily fluid. 

He throws the journal at the wall, letting it fall pathetically to the ground. God, he’s hot when he’s angry. 

“Look,” she says, and for a brief second it’s like someone else is saying it, and she thinks that other part of her has made a reappearance, the one that wants this all to be over as soon as possible. A pang of desperation, not sex-driven but one for escape, that’s gone as soon as it arrives. 

“I’m not thrilled about this either,” she continues after a moment. “You’re not the one already sleeping with our boss.”

He glares at her. 

“Oh my God,” she says, widening her eyes dramatically, “are you sleeping with Rumlow, too?”

He rolls his eyes and keeps pacing. 

“Have fun explaining this to him,” he mutters. 

“So you admit there _is_ going to have to be something to explain.”

He rolls his shoulders again. He’s been doing that since they first entered the compound; at first she thought it was to get rid of nervous energy. She knows better now. She smirks, and files this tendency away for future reference. 

He sighs, and finally stops pacing, turning to her. “We don’t have to do this,” he tells her, and this time he seems less annoyed than...concerned. Like he’s saying it for her benefit rather than his. It’s only slightly undermined by the way his eyes keep flickering to her lips, her chest, her hips. 

“I appreciate the chivalry,” she replies quietly, “But you and I both know that we do. And let’s be really honest with each other, Rogers. This isn’t the first time you’ve thought about it. It’s not the first time I have.”

He studies her for a long moment, and she takes notice of how dark his eyes have gotten. He might be more angry than anything on the outside, but on the inside, he’s not holding it together any better than she is. 

“Just this once,” he says finally, stepping closer to her, “call me Steve.”

With that, he takes hold of her hips and pulls her to the edge of the desk before letting his lips crash onto hers. 


	2. Chapter 2

_Wednesday, 2:16_

  
  


“Okay,” Steve says, “so why else would you set the whole place on fire?”

“I wasn’t trying to do that,” she repeats, more forcefully this time. “You--” _you know that. You saw me_. But ever since Tokyo, Rogers has only ever assumed the worst of her. And it's better that way. Safer. 

“I was shooting out the cameras,” she says. 

It's just this time, she needs him to believe that she didn't set an entire building full of crucial intelligence on fire just for funsies. If for no other reason than because she needs him to vouch for her with Fury, because she can't lose this job, and she definitely can't be locked up. 

“They were non-operational,” he says flatly, as if he's caught her in a lie, as if she didn't know he'd say exactly that. As if she wasn't already tossing around for a response before she'd finished her last sentence. 

The only thing she can think of is the truth, and _no_. The truth has never been her friend. Half the time she can't even trust her own mind with it; there's no way she can trust a man who hates her with it. 

The waitress comes by with coffee. Steve thanks her. Leila doesn't. 

“Can we please just talk about this later?” she half asks, half hisses. That sense of desperation is creeping back under her skin, she just needs time, okay, time to figure out her story, to find a really good lie, and Jesus _fucking_ Christ, are those tears pricking at the back of her eyes? 

Steve studies her for a long moment. She resists the urge to get up and walk away; if she leaves his eyeline without a confirmation that she's not going to come back to him interrogating her again, she knows she might just not come back at all. 

She wishes she knew what he sees in her that makes him shake his head and say “okay.” 

  
  
  


* * *

_Wednesday, 8:19 AM_

Leila owes Abraham Erskine a thank you card. 

She gets Steve's suit off down to his waist within a minute and once that's done….God, the man is like a work of art. Maybe it's the libido drugs but she's pretty sure he's just objectively what Michaelangelo was going for. 

And yet, he doesn't have the ego of good-looking guys. He's responsive, and she manages to slow down long enough to enjoy the way he shivers at her fingertips running down his biceps, her lips ghosting over his collarbone, before his self control snaps and he starts fumbling for the zipper of her suit. 

She guides his hands to where it ends at the back of her neck and he all but tears it off her upper body, letting it fall around her hips on the desk. Then he kisses her again, so hard she knows her lips are going to be bruised later, and it's not enough. Her back arches as he massages her breasts roughly, more roughly than she'd usually like, but this time she could probably barely feel anything less. 

She wraps her legs around his hips and pulls herself closer to him, teetering on the edge of the desk to roll her hips against his, and she feels him groan into the kiss, putting a hand on her lower back to pull her closer. He’s already hard under the suit, and she starts working it down his hips, running her fingers lightly over his pelvis. He shudders hard, and she finds herself enamored all over again by how easy it is to get such a response from him. 

Which is how she ends up on her knees, taking him as deep as she can, as slowly as she can, drawing it out until the lack of attention threatens to drive her insane. Then she's gripping his tight ass by her nails and trying to get him off as soon as possible because she can't stay down here with the only contact being his hand in her hair, the other on the desk above her. 

She knows touching herself is only going to make it worse, but whatever grown-up self control she's supposed to have is long gone. By the time Steve finishes, she's got her free hand slipped her under suit, fucking herself more desperately than she ever has. 

(Despite her flippancy earlier, Leila really doesn't get herself off very often, not unless she's very wound up. She's found it just makes her feel more alone than it does satisfy her most of the time. At some point she hit diminishing returns, and she loses more than she gets out of it.)

She wonders, vaguely, if one orgasm is all it takes, if Steve’s done with her now that he's gotten the inhalant out of his system--god, it’s humiliating how much that thought distresses her--but she only has to meet his eye for a moment to know it's not the case. 

They're not done with each other yet. 

  
  
  


* * *

_Wednesday, 2:45 PM_

Things get worse before they get better. 

Murre-Manesh is too small for motels. Instead they have not guest houses, but a singular guest house. The good news is that it's vacant. The bad news is that there's one room, with one bed. 

Which, under normal circumstances, would probably be irritating-to-entertaining, but with the feeling of Rogers’ lips on her neck still fresh in her memory, and the ashes of some kind of traumatic mistake thirty minutes away, these are not normal circumstances. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is short, but I kind of wrote this all in one document and then had to divide it up, and I wanted to divide it by what felt like natural breaking points instead of by length. And I figure since I'm posting this all at once, it doesn't matter that much.


	3. Chapter 3

_Wednesday, 10:43 AM_

At some point Leila loses track of why they’re doing what they’re doing. She knows, vaguely, that she’s waiting for _something,_ some kind of change, that it isn’t going to last forever, but she doesn’t have the mental space to dwell on it. Not when he’s got her against the wall, with her knees hooked over his shoulders and his head between her thighs. 

(If she’s counting right, this is the...third? Fourth? Time he’s eaten her out that day. She had to teach him the ropes, but she has to admit, he’s a fast learner.)

His hands grip her hips, keeping her steady as she arches her back, and she whispers his name over and over--God, she forgot how much she liked saying his name--until the words “fuck me” slip out right before she shatters. 

  
  
  
  


* * *

_Wednesday, 11: 38 AM_

Leila comes out of it before Steve does. At some point they made their way onto one of the beds in the center room, and she’s found herself under him with her limbs tangled around him (unusual for her, but she can’t be bothered to care), and then when she comes, when she starts coming down, she can feel her mind clearing...sort of. 

None of the worries about the complications of what’s happening have hit her yet. None of the anxiety hits yet. Mostly it’s an understanding that her body telegraphs to her mind: okay, we’re done. We’re good. It still feels good, but it’s not some primal need. She won’t die if he stops fucking her. 

There’s a part of her that considers stopping Steve, because something about it just feels off, knowing she’s in her right mind and Steve isn’t. But even if she tells him, it won’t change anything; knowing she’s back to normal is not going to fix things for him, for either of them. And he’s got his face buried in her neck, kissing and nipping at her skin, so he can’t see her expression...she decides to leave it alone. 

(And if she’s really honest with herself--which she’s not--there’s a part of her that likes being wrapped around him like this, a part that wants it to last for a little while longer.)

Steve doesn’t last much longer after she finishes, and when he pulls away and looks down at her after a moment, she can see in his eyes that he’s back to normal too. She untangles herself from him, and he pulls out slowly. 

They don’t say anything, but Steve, hovering over her, lingers just a moment longer than he needs to before standing up. 

He doesn’t look at her as they go back to the office. 

  
  
  


* * *

_Wednesday, 2: 55 PM_

  
  


There’s a laundry room in the guest house, thankfully. She calls 1-2-3-not-it on actually doing the laundry, to Steve’s annoyance, and uses the small bathroom adjacent to their room to change into the tank top and joggers she’d stuffed into her backpack. 

“It’s later,” Steve tells her when he returns from the laundry room. He must have changed in spare bathroom, because he’s out of his suit now; he's shirtless, wearing only a pair of sweatpants and a white transparent wifebeater. She knows this is arguably equally her fault as his (he had had a t-shirt, but the showers at the Hydra compound weren’t working, and they needed something to clean up with,) but it’s still annoying how the shirt shows off every single one of his muscles, how her eyes flicker to his biceps, his abs without meaning to, the way she doesn’t notice herself doing it until it’s too late. That wouldn’t have been an issue 24 hours ago; hell, she might’ve done it on purpose, let her eyes linger just to annoy him. 

“You’re right,” she says cheerfully. “It is. Now I can take a shower. Thanks. Oh,” she adds, “I’m going first. I called dibs. In my head.” The water will be weak, given the fact that the washer is running, but she doesn’t care. Her hair is disgusting, she still smells like sex under the grime of their hike, and most importantly, she doesn’t want to talk to him. 

“Whittaker,” he says, and it’s annoying how he sounds like he’s reprimanding her, like she’s some kind of unruly child, and she’d probably ignore him if he didn’t say, more quietly, “Leila.”

She’s not sure if she stops because of the use of her first name or the tone he uses, but she does, her hand lingering on the doorknob. 

“I need to take a shower,” she says. “We can talk later.”

“Just--” he takes a step forward. “Not about the compound. We need to talk about...ramifications.”

It takes her a second to place what he means. 

“Are you clean?” she asks, like she didn’t really obviously deflower him hours prior. 

“Yeah. But--”

“Great. So am I. Conversation over.”

“What about--”

“ _No_.” She’s not going there. She doesn’t have the mental space for it. 

“Look, I know it wouldn’t be ideal, but we have to be realistic. The whole point of that place was fertility, and we don’t know what else they put in the inhalant--”

“Whatever it was, I feel relatively certain it couldn’t regrow whole organs,” she snaps, and at his baffled look, she sighs. “The tattoo on my stomach is to cover up a hysterectomy scar. I’m not gonna be pregnant. I _can’t_ be pregnant.”

Steve just stands there, his hands fidgeting at his side, unsure of how to respond. She resists the urge to roll her eyes as a defense. 

“And now,” she says, “I’m going to take a shower.”


	4. Chapter 4

_Wednesday, 11:51 PM_

  
  


Leila was fifteen when her first public exorcism was performed. 

“Public” is a strong term, but it’s what _he_ called it, when he tied her to a bed and had sex with her while quoting scripture and pouring holy water over her while letting men in the compound watch. It was supposed to be for “educational purposes,” so they’d know what to do with their own wives. In reality, Leila thinks he probably just liked having witnesses to her humiliation, liked having other men validate the power he held over her. 

Ever since then, Leila’s had a weird relationship with the concept of exhibitionism. Sometimes it’s the only thing that can get her off; sometimes she leaves the window of her apartment open, the blinds pulled back so a stranger could see her riding whoever she’s with if they looked through the right angle. (They never do, to her knowledge; it’s just the understanding that they could.)

Other times, the idea of being seen, of being perceived, is so overwhelming her mind steps away again. Sometimes even her partner looking at her feels like too much. 

And sometimes she sees cameras in a room she just had sex in and she knows they’re non-operational and no one will ever see what just happened, that knowledge exists but she can’t grasp onto it, it’s just swirling around in her head, lost in the blind panic that’s overwhelming her, until she starts seeing white spots, until it feels like the cameras are spotlights pointed at her. 

Until she pulls out a gun and tries to shoot them out, and hits some kind of generator instead. 

  
  
  
  


* * *

_Wednesday, 3:01 PM_

Leila spends her time in the shower trying to come up with some kind of explanation for why she was shooting at the cameras in the first place. She explores the possibility of a flat-out lie, the idea that she was aiming for the generator intentionally as some part of a benevolent master plan, but she already said that she didn’t, back at the cafe. And besides, there’s no real answer there that doesn’t end up with at least the possibility of her in a cage. 

The problem is that there’s no real valid reason for her to have shot out the cameras. Steve might think she’s a monster, but he knows she’s not an idiot, so she can’t say she thought they were operational, and even if she thought they were, shooting them out--despite whatever was on them--would still have been tampering with SHIELD evidence. Maybe not enough to get her fired, given the circumstances, but still. 

There’s no rational reason for her mistake, and she really, really doesn’t want him to know how irrational she can be. She likes how he thinks she always has some villainous evil plan. She needs him to think she’s in control. 

So she tries to narrow it down to the smallest level of detail possible: she had a weird moment, she was in a weird headspace, she knows it was stupid, she wasn’t trying to blow anything up. After all, it’s not like he can judge. He’s been in a weird headspace all day, too. 

  
  
  
  


* * *

_Wednesday, 3:40 PM_

Steve doesn’t interrogate her when she comes back to their room. He passes by her wordlessly, brushing past her, and leaves the bedroom to go into the bathroom she just left, glancing at her with this look that she can’t quite place, and leaves her to her own devices. 

She tries not to dwell on anything that’s happened that day, so she turns on the small TV on the dresser. The only channel that shows up clearly enough to watch is a Greek translation of Hello Kitty. She finds herself more entertained than she probably should be, but that means it’s doing its job, so whatever. 

“What are you watching?” Steve asks upon reentering the room. 

“Hello Kitty,” she says, lying on her stomach on the bed. “Is our laundry done?”

“No,” he says. “What are you watching?”

“I said it’s Hello Kitty,” she says, and then stops. “...Did you think I was saying hello to you? Did you think I called you Kitty?”

“No,” Steve says, just a little too quickly, and Leila grins. 

“It’s a Japanese cartoon,” she explains, letting it go for now. “It’s the only channel I could get to work.”

He nods. “Right,” he says, his tone suddenly serious. And she wants to start a fight, like, why would he not believe her on this? Why would she lie about TV channels? But she knows it’s not about that. He’s just not sure how to change the subject. 

And usually she’d make him work for it, make him figure it out himself, but this time she just wants the conversation to be over with. 

“I don’t know why I shot out the cameras,” she says, resisting the urge to fidget. It’s a little too close to the truth for comfort. “I was in a weird headspace. I had a moment. I don’t know what else to tell you.”

“Okay,” he says quietly. “So why’d you miss?”

“...What?”

“You’re a good shot. You wouldn’t have missed the camera and hit the generator unless there was a reason.”

She swallows and closes her eyes for a moment. How the hell is she supposed to explain that she missed because she felt like she was about to pass out and couldn’t see what she was doing?

“Had an off day,” she says finally. “You’re just gonna have to take my word for it.”

“Right,” he says again, and this time there _is_ skepticism in his voice, but she doesn’t have the energy to address it. 

  
  
  
  


* * *

_Wednesday 11:51 PM_

There’s a gunshot, an explosion, and the sound of Steve’s voice from the office saying “what the _hell_ ,” breaking from his usual deadpan. 

She wishes the ensuing panic was just a blur, but it’s not. She remembers everything--how the explosion caught the place on fire so quickly, she and Steve rushing out the doors, scrambling to get above ground before the entire place went up, him tackling her into the dirt when the whole thing blew. 

The way he looked at her as he hovered above her, more bewildered than angry. The way he lingered over her just a beat longer than he needed to, just like he did that last time on the bed. The way he still offered her a hand when he stood up. The way he remained silent through their entire hike, only bringing it up when they reached town. 

The lingering smell of smoke, and the feeling of having dodged a bullet or two. 


	5. Chapter 5

_Thursday, 12:05 AM_

  
  


It’s midnight when she wakes up. 

The sound of the rain on the tin roof is louder than it would be in her DC apartment, but that’s not what wakes her. She feels Rogers shift next to her, the blanket pulled off her slightly. 

She blinks awake and glares at him a little. 

“Sorry,” he says flatly, like he’s thinking about something else. He won’t stop moving; it’s like some nervous energy had taken hold, and Leila has never seen Steve try to make himself look smaller, but she gets the distinct vibe that that’s why he’s half-curled up the way he is. Like he’s trying not to but can’t help it. It reminds her, for some reason, of the white spots she saw in the Hydra compound. 

“It’s the rain,” Leila realizes suddenly. “On the metal roof. It sounds like bullets.”

“Something like that,” Steve says noncommittally after a long moment, his body language not changing. Still tense, still frozen. _Ironic_ , she thinks, but she doesn’t say it out loud. 

Part of her wants to just leave it to him to handle. She’s pretty sure he’d do the same if it were her freaking out--hell, he has done it before. 

Then again, though, he didn’t know what was actually going on in her head. It’s annoying to recognize, but she knows that if he knew all about her oh-so-tragic backstory, he’d be a lot more patient with her. And that’s the position she’s in with him now. 

She sighs. “Hey,” she says, “turn around. Look at me.”

He hesitates for a long moment before doing so, studying her with that sort of guarded curiosity. 

“What bike are you working on now?” she asks. He blinks. 

“You trying to distract me?”

“It helps,” she replies, and realizes her mistake a beat too late. She shrugs. It is what it is. “So I’ve heard. And it’s the only thing I could think of that we still have in common.”

Steve studies her, like another piece of the puzzle that she is to him has just fallen into place. It’s not done yet, but it’s one more question answered. 

“It’s a sportster from 1962. And I could think of a few other things we have in common after today,” he adds dryly, and she can’t help but laugh. 

“Fair enough,” she says, and she sees that he’s smiling too, a little. “Tell me more about the Harley.”

  
  
  


* * *

_Thursday, 3:42 AM_

“Can I ask you something?” Steve asks hours later. She wonders vaguely how he knows she’s still awake. Maybe it’s the super soldier senses. 

“I don’t know why I shot out the cameras,” she replies preemptively. 

“That’s not what I was gonna ask,” he says gently, and he sounds like he already has his answer to that, and that knowledge pierces her, straight to her gut. Mostly, she doesn’t like the idea of him in her head like that. But there’s a part of her, this part of her that’s only awake at 3 in the morning, that finds some strange comfort in the notion. Which is even scarier. 

She sets it all aside for now. “Okay,” she says, turning from her back onto her side to face him. “Ask me something.”

“Why the hysterectomy?” And then, like he knows she’s going to deflect, “I feel like I’ve earned some honesty.”

She’s pretty sure he’s referring to his earlier panic attack, but the first place her mind goes is the fact that he ate her out three times and she blew him once. So like. Either way, fair. 

“First of all,” she says, “don’t make it a habit to ask women questions like that. It’s uncouth. But…” she stops for a moment, trying to decide how much to tell him. He waits patiently, studying her. It’s dark, but she could swear she sees him glance down at her lips for a split second. 

“I was pregnant. It didn’t end well. I didn’t want it to happen again. So I flew to Russia, met with an underground surgeon and made sure that it wouldn’t.”

“Do you regret it?” 

And she’d shut the question down, except that she can see some kind of recognition in his eyes. Like he relates. Like he regrets his own inability to have a family. 

“Fuck, that’s a loaded question,” she says, breathing out a laugh. Does she regret the way her life turned out? The way it became safer to rule out children altogether, a whole future path just blocked off? Of course. 

But would she do it again? In a heartbeat. 

“No,” she says finally. “I did what I had to do.”

“That’s a loaded answer,” he points out, and she smiles. 

“Now I have a question,” she says. 

“Shoot.”

“When are we getting back to normal? Like, when are you gonna start hating me again? I need to know when it’s okay to be mean to you again.” She smiles a little at her joke, but he just stares at her, confused. 

“I never hated you,” Steve says quietly. 

“Well fuck, Rogers, you’ve got some interesting communicative skills, then.”

“All my slang is outdated,” he responds dryly. “I don’t hate you, Leila. I just don’t know how to talk to you. I don’t understand you.”

_Good luck with that one, Rogers._

“Not many do,” she admits. 

“You prefer it that way.”

“It’s safer. People can’t use information against me if they don’t have that information.”

“Sounds like a lonely way to live.”

“There are worse lives,” she says quietly, and she closes her eyes to steady herself, pushing away the memories of the compound and the woods and _him_ before those damned lights come back. 

“Hey,” she hears, and she feels a hand on her arm. She opens her eyes to find Steve watching her, concerned. God. She was right. All he needed was a hint that she was some kind of broken bird instead of the monster she is and it triggered whatever remaining compassion he has left for her. 

She tries not to focus on how bitter that tastes just then; just closes her eyes again, letting him rub his thumb on her upper arm. 

“Tell me what bike you’re working on,” he says, and she smiles. 

“Don’t use my own tricks against me,” she says. “Say what you’re really thinking." 

“You’re not going to answer this,” Steve says finally, “and that’s okay. But I have to at least ask…”

“Go ahead,” she whispers. 

“What happened to you?”

It’s so different from the way he asked in Tokyo. That was an accusation. A demand that she explain herself, justify herself with some past trauma so he could look past her violence. 

This is an opportunity. An olive branch. An invitation. _You don’t have to tell me, but I’ll listen if you want._

_Not yet,_ something inside her says, and she’s more surprised by the “yet” than anything. 

“You’re right,” she says softly. “I’m not answering that.”

“That’s fair,” he says, and something clicks for her. Steve Rogers never had the luxury that Leila had of keeping her past under wraps. He woke up into a world that thought they knew everything about him. His childhood, his friendships, his past. He doesn’t get to pretend he’s not a survivor. 

She wonders, vaguely, what that’s like, and she wants to ask him, but before she can, he speaks. 

“I have one more question.”

“Shoot,” she says, mimicking his tone from earlier, and he smiles. 

  
“Do you hate me?” he asks. 

She watches him for a long moment, wondering at the fact that he even cares.

“No,” she says softly, and then clears her throat. “No, I never hated you. I just thought you hated me.”

It’s only then that she realizes how close they are; maybe she didn’t because they spent most of the day in much closer quarters, or maybe the whole scenario is just so surreal it didn’t occur to her. But he glances down at her lips again, she’s sure of it this time, and for a brief moment she lets herself go back to the Hydra compound, to how it felt being wrapped up in him. How it made every other hook-up seem empty, like it was missing something. 

She’s still debating kissing him when he kisses her first.


	6. Chapter 6

_A long time ago, in a land far away…_

The cruelest thing _he_ ever did to Leila was his intermittent kindness. 

Most of his cruelty was overt; he seemed to delight in finding new ways to humiliate her, to exert his power over her, to toy with her mind and body like he owned them. 

But sometimes he would bring her flowers, and compliment the color of her eyes. Sometimes he would tell her she was special to him. Sometimes in bed, his touches were gentle, the way a husband should treat his wife.

He would do this just often enough that she never quite knew which version of him she would get. There were times when she braced herself for his violence and it never came; there were times she expected his kindness and received his violence instead. There was no pattern to it. There was no honeymoon period cycle. There didn’t need to be; he didn’t need to manipulate her into staying. She already had no power. She’s pretty sure he just did it for fun. 

She lived in a constant state of stress, walking on eggshells, never knowing what would set him off, what would make him sigh wearily and tell her that he was wrong, the exorcisms weren’t working and they had to try something else. (Something else always meant something worse.)

After awhile, even when he was kind to her she could not enjoy it. Even when he made love to her instead of raping her, she couldn’t relish in his attention. He could turn on her at any minute. So she lied there, petrified of doing something wrong, and he let her. 

That was when her mind learned how to escape. 

  
  


* * *

_Thursday, 3:43 AM_

“Wait,” Steve says, and for a brief moment, Leila hates herself for thinking this meant anything, that he wasn’t going to just forget how fucked up she is and how--

“Rumlow,” Steve says, and it takes a second for Leila to place what he means. 

“We’re not exclusive,” she says. “It--I was messing with you, earlier. It’s casual. I’m single.” 

“Anything for the joke,” he tells her, but he’s still breathing hard. 

“You’re in the presence of a comedy genius,” she replies, and kisses him again. 

The kiss starts out chaste, but a desperation seeps in between them quickly--an organic one, not the chemically induced one from the compound. She doesn’t just want to sleep with him; she wants to be close to him. And that should scare her, and it does, but for once, that’s the part of her that she sets aside. If she regrets it later, she’ll deal with it then. For now, she just needs him. Needs his skin on hers, needs to feel like she’s not alone. She gives in to that feeling that undercurrents every one of their interactions, good and bad. This feeling that he’s the one person in the world who might really understand her. 

And as much as she likes kissing him, it’s not a particularly comfortable position to do anything more than that, so she breaks the kiss briefly to push him onto his back before she pulls herself onto him, straddling his waist. 

This only encourages him; he reaches up, tangling his fingers in her curls to pull her down into another kiss, while his other hand slips under the back of her tank top, his fingers trailing up her spine, and there’s a short pang of relief that whatever this desperation is, it’s something he feels, too. 

In a way, their history at the Hydra compound is convenient, because she doesn’t have to worry about what he does and does not respond to. She already knows. She worries his bottom lip between her teeth, and he groans, digging his nails into her back, which makes her shudder. She sits up and removes her tank top, tossing it across the room before leaning down again to nibble on his earlobe. 

“Leila,” he breathes, and reaches down to massage her breasts, less roughly than in the compound this time but by no means gently, pinching and rolling her nipples until she moans out his name--

Then suddenly he grips her hips and pushes her until she’s on her back and he’s hovering over her. 

“Is this okay?” he breathes, and she wouldn’t have noticed if he didn’t--ordinarily she finds it a turn-off--but now there’s something charming about it, something _safe_ about it, the way he pauses to ask even as he can’t keep his eyes off her lips, her collarbone, her breasts--

“Don’t get used to it,” she tells him, “but yes.” With that, she tangles a hand in his hair and pulls his face to her neck, and he begins to leave a trail of messy kisses down her skin until he reaches her tits, taking a nipple in his mouth. 

She bites her lip hard to keep from groaning too loud, and keeps her hand tangled in his hair as he works on her other breast with his hand. 

“Fuck,” she mumbles, her back arching reflexively. She reaches her free hand down to fumble around his neck before grasping the seam of his tank top and tugging on it. 

He sits up and obediently pulls his shirt over his head, tossing it aside, and she runs her hands down his chest--God, he really is a work of art--to tug the edge of his sweatpants down. He leans down again, propped up on an elbow over her so they can work his sweats off. She makes a point to hook a finger in his boxers so he’s laid completely bare when they’re done. 

Then she switches again, rolling over so she’s straddling him, and he swallows hard. 

“Told you not to get used to it,” she says, and he grins. 

She runs her hands down his chest absently, and he shivers. 

“What are you thinking?” he asks after a moment. His eyes have gotten huge again, but less hazy than they were last time. More lucid. Last time, as good as it was physically, was not something either of them had chosen. This time, he knows exactly what he’s walking into. 

“Part of me thought it was just the Hydra inhalant,” she says slowly, and then glances up to meet his eye again. 

“I was wrong. You really do look this good naked.”

He laughs and pulls her down for another kiss, slower this time, and she remembers another thought she’d had at the compound that she didn’t voice. 

She pulls away and looks down at him. 

“How do you feel about being tied up?” she asks, and he stares for a moment before something clicks in his eyes, like he didn’t know it was exactly what he wanted until that moment. 

“Do it,” he tells her, almost whispering. 

She grins and stands up, shimmying her sweats and underwear off so she can make a point of bending over when she goes to her backpack and pulls the rope out of it. It’s technically supposed to be for any mission-related needs that arise, but what SHIELD doesn’t know won’t hurt them. 

“God,” she hears him mumble as she bends over, and smirks to herself. 

  
  
  
  


* * *

_Thursday, 3:16 AM_

“We need a safe word,” she says, taking a page from his book as she ties him up, “in case you want to stop.”

He looks at her, almost confused. “Okay. What about ‘stop’?”

She grins and leans down to kiss him. “Sounds good.”

There’s always something liberating about having someone tied up under her. Maybe it’s the reminder that she’s no longer under _his_ thumb, that she has the power now, that she gets to choose how and when she has sex. Or maybe it’s the fact that when she does, she can kiss down someone’s chest, touch them, go down on them, exert power over them to make them feel good instead of afraid, like she’s doing with Steve right now--and maybe that means she’s not totally like _him_ after all.

(Maybe. She tries not to examine it too closely.)

Leila can never fully escape her paradigm where everything is a power dynamic, but this is where she gets the closest. There’s balance in this. The difference between being forced to her knees by a man to suck him off and having him tied up to do so is so stark, they may as well not be the same sex act at all. 

When she’s done, when she’s gotten him to scream and left scratch and bite marks on his thighs, she sits up and studies him. It might not have been her that just got off, but there’s a sort of release that comes about anyway. 

The fun thing about the super-soldier serum--well, one of them--is the fact that there’s no recovery period. No fifteen minute wait. He’s ready to go again almost immediately. She shifts so she can work him until he’s hard again, but as her eyes meet his, he says “Wait.”

She raises an eyebrow. 

“Just because I’m tied up doesn’t mean I don’t want to be a gentleman.”

And that’s how she finds herself riding his face into infinity, his tongue working against her clit with the desperation only a man with no other point of contact can muster. She has one hand tangled in his hair, the other braced against the wall behind the bed, leaning forward so she doesn’t suffocate him, and she’s pretty sure that out of all the times they’ve fucked so far, this one might be the one that makes her lose her mind for good. He’s not touching her, but it’s like she can feel every sound he makes vibrating over her body, like she can feel his eyes over her body like a physical sensation. 

This is the other plus side to this not being their first time. He already knows how her body works, and all it takes is an “I’m gonna--” so he knows she’s about to squirt. He seems to enjoy it almost as much as she does. 

She climaxes a minute later, leaning her forehead on her arm against the wall, digging her nails into his scalp until she comes down from her high. She shifts carefully and straddles his waist and studies him for a moment. Leila has never gotten any particular thrill from the messier aspects of sex, but fuck if Steve’s face covered in her come isn’t the hottest thing she’s ever seen. 

“What was our safe word again?” Steve says, and she grins and pulls the rope to untie him. 

“You out of steam, Rogers?”

“”No,” he says huskily, and sits up. He wipes his face on the back of his hand then grabs her hips with that iron grip she’s come to love so much. “I just wanted to touch you.”

  
  
  


* * *

_Thursday, 5:20 AM_

Between Leila’s experience, Steve’s lack of refractory period, and their similar super-stamina, they get an unusually high amount of rounds in before they stop as the light of dawn starts to slip through the windows. 

She curls up on the bed next to him. 

“What are you thinking?” Steve asks her. 

“Would you believe me if I said I was thinking about how good you look naked again?”

He chuckles, but doesn’t say anything. She likes how he knows she has more to say without having to ask. 

“I’m just…” she struggles for a moment. “I’m just happy right now. I feel good.”

“Me too,” he says, smiling softly, and pulls her into his arms. She allows herself, just for the moment, to bask in feeling safe, instead of reminding herself that she never is. 

“So,” she says after a moment, faux-casually, “remember what I said earlier about the what-are-we talk?”

He grins. “Yeah. I remember.” 

“Right. We should have that.”

“Well. I’m probably doing this out of order, but maybe we can talk about it when I take you to dinner?”

She grins. “‘When.’ Look at you, all confident.” He laughs--god, she loves the sound of his laugh--and she can’t stop smiling. 

She knows that if she says yes, it’s going to be that much harder to disentangle herself from him when they inevitably part ways. Nothing good in her life has ever lasted, and she doesn’t see that changing in the immediate future. 

It’s just that this time...this time, maybe the good part will last at least long enough to balance out the ending. Maybe it’ll be a fair trade-off for her. She hopes it is for him, anyway. 

It’s the closest thing she’s felt to hope in a long time. 

“Yeah,” she says finally. “Dinner sounds good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's it! Honestly writing this shook up my usual process and I think it's going to help going forward. It was fun to just write not totally knowing what would come next, and I think writing the whole thing in one document and dividing it after the fact also helped. 
> 
> I also might do some more with this premise. I'd like to go over this from Steve's POV, and I'd also like to follow up on both the evolution of their relationship and the fallout of finding out that Hydra existed after the 40s. 
> 
> Anyways, I'd really, really love to hear what people have to say on this. Love you all and stay safe. <3

**Author's Note:**

> The mentions of Tokyo: Leila and Steve began to connect as they both worked for SHIELD after the Battle of New York. However, they had a mission that led them to Tokyo where a severe traumatic trigger caused Leila to dissociate and almost kill a woman they'd been ordered to bring in alive. This combined with the fact that Steve had just recently learned about Leila's past as the leader of an assassins-for-hire group led to a fight between them and they fell out, and things have been tense ever since, up until this fic. 
> 
> I like the idea of them getting to a point where Steve isn't demanding all the answers from her right now this second; he's letting her open up at her own pace. And in return Leila stops assuming the worst of him and is willing to take him on good faith that he actually will have compassion for her.


End file.
